OTOP: One Time, One Place. AKA: Ichi go, ichi e, or one life, one meeting. In any encounter there is only one chance. Now is
absolute, tomorrow is only a maybe. Your whole life is in this moment.

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Wild Geese

Today's yoga class kicked my butt. It was worth it in the end because my body was thankful for the stretching, flexing, and centering....and because my yoga instructor shared this poem with us.

Wild Geeseby Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.You do not have to walk on your kneesfor a hundred miles through the desert repenting.You only have to let the soft animal of your bodylove what it loves.Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.Meanwhile the world goes on.Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rainare moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees,the mountains and the rivers.Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,are heading home again.Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination,calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting — over and over announcing your place in the family of things.

This was just what I needed today....this poem. I do not have to be good. I do not have to walk on my knees through the desert repenting. I can live my life and be the best I can be...whether or not it is the best to you...or good to you...is not something to be worried about. I will live my life as it fulfills me and fit into this world as I am meant to.